


Month 10, Day 1

by hopefulcadence



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grey's Anatomy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 14:15:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12367479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopefulcadence/pseuds/hopefulcadence
Summary: It's now official: Lance, Keith, and Hunk have been general surgical residents for ten months now. They should probably be used to the long days by now.





	Month 10, Day 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based off the beautiful pictures by cheritsundere, found at: http://cheritsundere.tumblr.com/post/163001661320/vld-keith-said-greys-anatomy-au-click-on-each
> 
> This is a "Grey's Anatomy" AU insofar as the characters are surgeons, but I don't watch Grey's so that's as far as the (intentional) parallels go! The original sketches had Pidge as a surgeon but I felt her line would suit an anaesthetist so, so much, so I followed my heart.
> 
> I'm not sure if the terminology is the same across the world, so in this world, residents are more junior than registrars (who have been accepted onto a training program) who are more junior than fellows (final year registrars) who are more junior than consultants.
> 
> Thank you cheritsundere for the beautiful pictures!

Lance is just pulling his stethoscope around his neck when his beeper buzzes against his hip and echoes throughout the changing room. Rolling his eyes, he snatches it up and groans as he reads the scrolling text.

"Dude, is that the code pager already?" Hunk's voice floats over to him from across a row of lockers.

"Why yes, yes it is," Lance grumbles in return. "I'll be late for handover, say good morning to Dr Altea for me!"

Hunk's laughter fades as Lance snatches up his white coat, tosses it on over the top of his blue scrubs, and strides out the door. Of course his first call would be Ward 5D, literally the entire way across the hospital. _Of course_. And of course by the time he arrives, winded from running up the stairs, Keith is already there and running the code.

"What are you doing here?" Lance demands, eyes already flickering to the patient's bed in his own automatic assessment: middle-aged male, conscious, no obvious massive bleed, pink skin, breathing, answering the nurse's questions with a gasping voice. Nasal prongs at 4L oxygen in place. No emergency management required.

"It's my patient," Keith replies as he rolls his eyes. "I got the page as well."

" _I got the page as well_ ," Lance mimicks under his breath. A nurse arrives with the patient's bedside chart, and he turns a smile on her as he grabs it and flicks it open. Keith holds out his hand impatiently, so Lance opens it to the med charts and hands it over.

Keith doesn't deign to respond to him as he steps up to the patient's bedside. He draws a pen out of the pocket of his scrubs and starts scribbling into the med chart. "Alright sir," he starts in his Talking To Patients Voice (it's slower and lower than his usual snarky bite, which amuses Lance to no end), "I'm going to give you some medication which will help you breathe more easily. Are you allergic to anything?"

As the patient is shaking his head, Shiro arrives at the door. "Hi everyone, I'm the code reg today. What's going on?" he introduces as his eyes flicker across to the patient in brief assessment before settling on Keith and Lance calmly. It's a relief, always, when a registrar arrives, even after almost ten months of residency on the ward. Lance grins at Shiro.

Keith speaks up first, but Lance doesn't begrudge it. "This is a 54 year old male on my team, admitted yesterday for diabetes optimisation in preparation for elective left knee arthroplasty tomorrow. Code called for oxygen sats of 81%. Diagnosed with APO, currently on oxygen with sats 92%. About to prescribe morphine, furosemide, and nitrates."

Shiro nods at Keith, and Keith's shoulders relax infinitismally. Lance knows the feeling. They've only seen, maybe, a hundred acute pulmonary oedemas by now, but it's Shiro they're presenting to: Shiro, who was the one to have inspired them both to become orthopaedic surgeons themselves when they had been medical students on Shiro's team. Shiro turns to the patient and starts speaking in low tones.

Lance sidles up to Keith and nudges him in the side. "And now you get to write the note!" he crows in delight. "Serves you right for being first on the scene."

Keith shoves him in return and picks up the bedside chart before sweeping out of the room. Lance snickers, excuses himself from Shiro, and hurries to the doctor's station where Keith is just dropping the chart onto a spare bit of desk. "You weren't on take last night were you?" Lance checks quickly, and when Keith shakes his head, he nods. "Okay, I'm going to handover. See you in theatre."

Keith waves him off without a word, already uncapping his pen and starting to scrawl into the chart.

Five hurried minutes later, Lance slips into the back of the handover room and into a seat next to Hunk. "Did you say hello to Dr Altea for me?" he teases, and Hunk punches him gently in the shoulder. Dr Allura Altea is the new consultant orthopaedic surgeon, tall and gorgeous and terrifyingly efficient. (And terrifying – she did a fellowship in trauma surgery). Hunk is pretty sure she could and would break bones without blinking. Lance is both in love and terrified of her.

Handover concludes just a few minutes later, and Hunk huffs as he glances at his list. His team was on take last night and they had had a busy night: four admissions since midnight.

"Lance, my boy!" Coran greets with overwhelming enthusiasm as the meeting packs up and the surgeons find their teams. "Just who I was looking for! Dr Slav's reg has been pulled from theatre to go run hand clinic and he has requested you for his morning list! I'm sure you will be thrilled for the opportunity!"

 

 

 

That's how he ends up scrubbing in that morning and taking his place opposite Keith, who's eyes are positively _dancing with glee_. Lance is going to kill him after this.

"Time out," Keith calls, and the bustle of staff pauses as he reads off the patient's name and date of birth, checks the consent, and checks the staff. "Lead surgeon, myself, Keith Kogane, _assistant_ surgeon, Lance McClain -" and there! There's that smugness! Lance glares at Keith, but with the mask and goggles obscuring most of his face it's ineffective at suppressing the smirk growing across Keith's. " - and anaesthetic reg Katie Holt," he finishes.

"Oh, hey, Pidge!" Lance cheers up as he leans back to see Pidge curled up on the anaesthetist's stool drawing up antibiotics into a syringe. Shay, the anaesthetic technician, is behind her clearing away the wrappers from the patient's anaesthetic and intubation.

"So very perceptive of you to notice!" she snarks in return, eyes never leaving the glass bottle in her hands, but Lance just snickers to himself. He turns to the scrub nurse's table and reaches out, just getting his equipment in order, but Pidge's voice floats over to him:

"No one holds a scalpel until I'm so happy I'm _Mary quiznaking Poppins_ ," she sing-songs, and Lance snatches his hand away from the tray.

"I wasn't going to do anything!" he complains, but Pidges just smiles at him serenely. Lance gulps and smiles as sweetly as he can in return.

Pidge turns to Keith. "Okay Keith, supercalifra-"

"I got it," Keith cuts in, amused. "Don't start singing again. You'll traumatise Shay."

Shay looks up, amused, as Pidge waves the syringe of antibiotics vaguely threateningly before injecting it into the patient's IV drip. "Why don't you just shut up and do your job, hey? That sounds like a great plan!"

Keith turns to the scrub nurse, smirk fading as his professionalism kicked in. In less than a minute, they're set up, abdomen inflated and cameras in situ. The appendix is there, easily seen on the screen, engorged and red and swollen.

"Damn," Lance whistles to himself as he turns out of the cameras, seeking a better view. "I bet you could rupture that just by looking at it!"

Of course, it ruptures, halfway through Keith's delicate clipping of the base. Blood and pus spill out into the free abdomen, and Keith curses under his breath.

"Nice one, Dr Mullet," Lance teases, but he and Keith are the picture of professional efficiency as they quickly start suction and rinse the abdomen with saline.

"This was _all you_ ," Keith promises darkly. "This is what happens when you _tempt fate_!"

Despite the setback, they've been doing this for ten months now, and the operation goes smoothly after that. Forty-five minutes later, Lance and Keith are just finishing the sutures for their keyholes when Shiro walks in. "How's it going?"

"Finished!" Lance cheers with a shoulder wiggle (it's the closest he can do to a victory dance while he's in the sterile field, okay? He tries!), just as Keith also says: "Just got the dressing to go."

"Good, I'll leave you to it then," Shiro nods. "Dr Altea's got a trauma coming in in fifteen minutes so Dr Slav and I have been bumped from here to operate with her. Keith, you and Lance can handle the rest of this list, just two elective lap choles." He waits until they have both nodded at him, then waves at Pidge - her brother is another ortho reg, same as Shiro - and leaves the theatre again.

Lance eyes Keith speculatively. "Oi, can I -"

"No, Lance, they're _my patients_. You can be lead surgeon when it's your team's patients!"

"Yeah, whatever. Let's just get started! Where's the next patient? Since, you know, it's _your patient_ and all –”

"I'm waiting for Pidge!"

"Well, _I'm_ waiting for you both to shut up and let me know you're ready to bring them in," Pidge replies cheerfully. "You know, instead of squabbling like the children you are?"

Lance throws up his hands at Keith and stalks off to get his gown and gloves as Pidge cackles in the corner.

It's going to be a long morning.

 

 

 

Amazingly, the list doesn't run over despite Keith's adamant refusal to let Lance run lead on an operation ("Oh my god, Lance, how do I never remember how much of a _child_ you are? Act like a surgeon!" "I _would_ if you would _let me_!" "Argh!"), and now Lance is _freeeee_! Thank holy quiznak for half days. He has a presentation to prepare for tomorrow's student education session. Pidge is also finished for the day, but of course _she_ has finished her prep work for next week. Stupid genius.

They wander into the tea room, bags in hand, just as Hunk, now clad in his trademark yellow scrubs, frowns into the fridge. "Quinaking Jambalaya Day," he grumbles to himself, "it's like a hearty bowl of _Salmonella_. Who's is this even?" he straightens and catches sight of Lance and Pidge, waves them over.

"Erm, uh, definitely not mine!" Lance promises, and when Pidge levels him with an unimpressed stare, laughs. "Nah man, I'm messing with you. It's not mine, but I know where it belongs, and that is _in the trash_. We can't have that spreading through our wards, norovirus is bad enough as it is!"

Hunk carefully writes a note _strongly suggesting_ the owner not eat their food and lays it onto the tupperware container before pulling out his own meal and taking a seat next to Pidge at a table in the corner. Lance has a pile of sandwiches. Pidge has a large coffee and a bottle of gatorade. She raises an eyebrow at him, challenging, and Hunk mimes zipping his lips.

"What's up?" he nods at where Lance's laptop is taking most of the table space, a question on his face.

Lance spins the screen to face Hunk. "12 hours worth of prepping for student education tomorrow, Hunk. I'm going to die."

Pidge leans forward, peering at the line of words on the screen. " _Alzheimer's is a bad disease. We should cure it_ ," she read out. “ _This_ took you 12 hours?"

"Like I said, I'm going to _die_. I'm sure you can come up with a good story for the funeral. And an even more outrageous one for the wake. Everyone will be too drunk to call you out on it," he muses, but he spins the laptop back around to himself and starts typing like a mad man.

It's at this point that Keith arrives in the tea room, surveys the tables, makes a beeline for them, shoves Lance's laptop over to make some space, and sits.

"What took you so long?" Lance asks, shoving his laptop back into Keith's space very deliberately.

"Went to talk to Shiro and ended up talking to Dr Altea," he replies as he pokes at Lance's abandoned sandwiches. Lance immediately smacks his fingers away.

"Did she promise to break your arms as vengeance for not letting her favourite resident be lead surgeon?" Lance teases, glancing up from the screen.

Keith cocks his head, pretending to think. (The answer is _no_ , it had gone more like, "Shiro, do you think if I stuck a fork into Lance's thigh, I'd get in trouble?" and Dr Altea replying with "Not if you make it look like an accident..." as Shiro snickered to himself and Keith bit back a laugh but not the grin on his face). He's opening his mouth to reply when his beeper goes off, and everyone at the table groans in sympathy.

"Ugh." Keith grabs the pager and gets to his feet once more. "When I die, come up with a good story for the funeral," he grumps, and doesn't even question it when Pidge bursts into delighted cackles and Hunk points at Lance and laughs.

"Oh shut up," Lance grumbles as he watches Keith hurry out of the tea room. "And go away. I have this quiznaking paper to write for the students tomorrow."

Pidge drains the last of her coffee and leans forward with a grin. "Hey Lance, do you know what I'm doing this afternoon?"

"Don't go there," Lance threatens, but Pidge barrels on in delight:

"I'm going _home_ and I am _watching Netflix_ and _trashing your score in Overwatch_ and _laughing_ when I think of you still working here. _And_ ," and there's a glint in her eyes, "I have tomorrow off." That's the coup de grace, and both Lance and Hunk groan and bury their faces into the table.

"Stupid anaesthetic reg getting a stupid day off," Lance complains to his laptop. Hunk takes it with more grace, standing and stretching.

"I've got clinic this afternoon," he says, "so I gotta go. Catch you later."

Pidge clambers out of her seat with pride, salutes Lance with her gatorade, and leaves with Hunk.

Lance is left alone with his laptop, which is what he wanted, but was also probably the _worst thing ever_. Teaching was the worst. Students were the worst. Alzheimer's quizknaking disease is the _worst_ of them all! He grumbles as he stabs angrily at the keyboard, forcing words onto the page. He'll get this done if it's the last thing he does.

 

 

 

Keith is kept busy with one job or another until evening shift has arrived and all the patients are handed over. When he's finally, blissfully, free, he passes his pager over to the evening resident and books it, striding straight for the tea room. Lance is still in the corner, stretching the kinks out of his shoulders when Keith arrives, so Keith goes straight for Lance again and slumps into the seat opposite him.

"Did you get to eat in the end?" Lance asks, and the top of Keith's head shakes a no. "Keith, my dude, that is very unhealthy. You know what we tell our patients about healthy dietary habits after all!" Keith lifts his head just enough to narrow his eyes at Lance, before dropping once more. Lance laughs and stands up, shoving his laptop into his bag and swinging it over his shoulder. "Let's go. It's only six-thirty, we can have an early dinner!"

Keith groans and shoves himself upright as well. He runs his fingers through the mess of hair at the base of his neck with a grimace, and follows Lance as they head for their lockers. Keith digs through his bag until he finds a hairtie, then roughly combs his hair and pulls it into a ponytail.

Lance quirks an eyebrow at him. "You're wearing an alarmingly high ponytail."

Keith turns to look at him, considering. Lance had totally forgotten, hadn't he. "Your mother is coming."

Lance hits the side of his head with a hand. "Quiznak, I forgot!" Called it. "Alright, let's go."

They keep a professional distance until they reach the hospital's carpark, but once they're inside, Keith allows himself to give in to an entire day's worth of looking but not touching, and grabs Lance by his shirtfront to drag him into a kiss. Lance's mouth opens against his with a hum, and Keith breaths out deeply through his nose, refusing to break the kiss. Lance's hand is warm against his upper arm where it holds him gently in place, and when Keith finally pulls away, Lance's eyes are gentle and warm as they regard him.

"Hey, babe," he grins mischievously, and then laughs as Keith shoves his face away with an unimpressed hand.

"Worst. Flirt. Ever," Keith groans. "Just shut up and decide where we're taking your mother out tonight." Lance continues to laugh as he pulls out his phone and Keith starts up the car.

 

 

 

(Tomorrow morning, they wake up while it's still dark outside, stumble through their morning routine of mostly coffee and stubbed toes, and drag themselves out to the car. During the ride to the hospital, Lance will sneak his hand onto Keith's thigh to rub affectionate circles there. And once they've parked, they'll kiss, they’ll walk in with a metre between them, and they'll continue to kick butt and save lives. And, of course, be in love.)

 


End file.
